Free Men and Wives by Ivy Compton-Burnett

face the same myself.”
    â€œMrs. Calkin, I can only emulate your courage.”
    â€œI cannot offer any courage as an example,” said Geraldine.“I can only remember writhing in darkness.”
    â€œThere is the loss that no one knows who has not suffered it,” said Agatha.
    â€œAll our troubles have been as nothing!” said Geraldine.
    â€œNo, no,” said Agatha, “indeed not that. But not the one loss of all losses.”
    â€œIt makes one more and more thankful one has not married,” said Geraldine. “I have not realised quite how much reason I had for gratitude.”
    â€œMiss Dabis, it is not a reason for gratitude for someone else,” said Dominic.
    â€œAs we are talking of marriage, can’t we talk of the break-up of the Bellamys’ marriage?” said Kate. “We are supposed to behave in a natural way with people in trouble, and it is very unnatural not to be talking of it.”
    â€œMiss Kate, do not let me prevent you,” said Dominic earnestly.
    â€œThat is putting it in a much safer way. Agatha and Geraldine, do not let Mr. Spong and me prevent you.”
    â€œIt is so strange to me,” said Agatha, embarking simply on her own treatment of the subject, “that people who have had the great experience of coming together, and sharing the first deep events of married life, can break it all up as if it were a trivial, passing relationship. I have nothing in me that helps me to understand it.”
    â€œYou can look at the things without you,” said Geraldine. “There are plenty of illuminating illustrations about.”
    â€œMiss Dabis, I do not think there are plenty,” said Dominic in a grieved and dubious tone.
    â€œI was only thinking casually of the instances that rose to my mind,” said Geraldine, her voice as casual as her thought.
    â€œWas Lady Haslam upset by the news from the rectory?” said Agatha.
    â€œI can hardly say,” said Dominic. “I was not present at the breaking of it to her. She can scarcely not have been aware of it, but we did not carry on conversation on thatline. I rose to go very soon. With your permission, Mrs. Calkin, I will now take my leave of you, with thanks to you for the words we have exchanged. Miss Dabis, Miss Kate, you will allow me to make my adieux.” He seemed to find a fitness in the frivolous phrase. “I hope that when things are easier with me, I shall have the pleasure of welcoming you all under my roof, if you will tolerate my being, as I shall be, forced to dispense my hospitality myself.”
    â€œCan we tolerate it?” said Kate. “By himself he will not allow gossip; and how can we cope with circumstances we have never met? Most people insist on it.”
    â€œYou will soon come up to Lady Hardisty, if you go on persevering in her line!” said Geraldine, with her eyebrows raised.
    Kate looked kindly and uncomprehending, not ready to be drawn upon her emulation of Rachel, which had struck her as in its nature imperceptible.
    â€œPoor man, he feels it very deeply,” said Agatha, coming back into the room.
    â€œHe thought I did not feel it enough,” said Kate.
    â€œWell, anyhow he said so!” said Geraldine.
    â€œWe must not expect everyone to enter into everything,” said Agatha. “That would not be possible. If Mr. Spong expects it, he is wrong. We must get to know that, those of us whose lives hold the Chapter not common to all. It is the price we pay for fuller experience. We must be content to pay it.”
    â€œWe can be more content not to pay it,” said Geraldine.
    â€œI shall never get over being thought to behave with a want of taste and feeling,” said Kate. “I shall harbour towards Mr. Spong the peculiar aversion we have towards those we have wronged.” She glanced at her sister as she ended.
    â€œWell, we can talk about the Bellamys now,” said Geraldine, with a